Kyle Bruckmann studied oboe at Rice University in Houston and at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. There, he learned what was required of an orchestra oboist and he knew he was expected to be part of the classical-music establishment. That wasn’t what he really wanted to do, however. These days he says that he takes perverse glee in using the wrong tools for the job. In other words, he likes to compose music that is very different from what is currently being played by symphony orchestras. He likes jagged melodies and fast interplay between instruments and electronics.

His Cell Structure is a 2009 composition that begins with low electronic rumblings that oboist Bruckmann and clarinetist Matt Ingalls eventually interrupt with higher tones. There is melody, but it is rather fleeting. This interesting piece continues with increasing intensity and unusual harmonics that take a few minutes to absorb. Composer T?ru Takemitsu once wrote, “If there is a sound that is alive, some kind of order will naturally exist.” In Bruckmann’s Cell Structure there is a definite order but it differs from what we are used to hearing in most contemporary jazz or classical music.

Bruckmann’s Chicago ensemble Wrack and the Rova Saxophone Quartet play the album’s title work, his On Procedural Grounds, with live electronics. For Orgone Accelerator Bruckmann adds electronics to the oboe and the English horn. It begins with soft high tones followed by low buzzing sounds punctuated by clicks. They throb and then stop completely. When they return they begin to build a major crescendo that sounds like thousands of alien insects getting louder and louder as they guard their hive. Even the title of the next selection, Tarpit, defies definition. It might be a command to cover something up or it could be a musical description of a deep pit of black, sticky tar. Bruckmann does not let us in on his secret. He just tells us that the work is a “cautionary tale” and that he instructed players to strive for impetuous, even eccentric lyricism. This piece has a different, pleasant, more familiar sound from the others on the CD because it has a string component that seems to be fighting a battle against the electronics, and in the end the strings lose. In this cautionary tale the electronics win out over every musical instrument. That is food for thought.